I don’t want this blog to appear that I’m flogging my own nutritional supplements, so I purposely haven’t discussed the supplements we make.

I have noticed that! It is one of the reasons I love your blog all the more. It is 100% Mike Eades with no hidden agenda. I do enjoy your blog. I enjoy the comments and your replies to them as well.

Patty

Hi Patty–

Thanks for the kind words.

Best–

MRE 

Here are a couple of refs he had sitting around, but we have nothing expressly linking the syndrome with histamine reaction (that might have been a connect-the-dots moment).

Food Chem Toxicol 1989 May 27(5):283-7 Links histamine in Oriental Foods with possible histamine reactions.

Intern Med 2001 Aug 40(8):833-5
Describes cases of scombroid poisoning with symptoms similar to Chinese Restaurant Sickness.

Hi Anne–

Thanks very much.  I’ll pull these down post haste.

I appreciate your effort.

Best–

MRE 

If you want a really good experiment, try mixing some Mento’s with your diet sodas.

I’ve seen the Mento/diet soda experiment.  It can he found on YouTube.  Very impressive.

Cheers– 

There is a recent study showing that vitamin K at physiological concentrations is able to counteract glutamate-induced free radical-mediated cell death in oligodendrocytes.

I think Gretchen’s speculation is quite sensible. Glutamate is, in fact enzymatically “detoxified” by combining it with ammonia to form glutamine — something that also detoxifies ammonia. Plasma levels are generally only sensitive to high doses of glutamate, and brain levels are generally unresponsive to plasma levels because of the blood brain barrier. The sensitivity of brain cells depends on regulation of the glutamate/glutamine cycle, regulation of excitation and inhibition with other neurotransmitters, regulation of intercellular levels of glutamate, the concentration of l-cysteine, and so on. There are a wide range of enzymes involved in all of these processes from beginning to end that could have various polymorphisms in different populations.

I don’t find your assumption that there are not people, even many people, with glutamate sensitivities in Asia in any case. In America you need merely talk to a few average people to find people with varying sensitivities to aspartame and many case reports of serious consequences of aspartame but it is generally considered healthy and short of phenylketonuria sensitivities are basically swept under the rug.

I agree, however, that MSG is very probably not inherently bad.

Hi Chris–

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this posted, but your comment was one that got hung up with all the spam.  Probably because you put a URL in it; the spam filter appears to key on that.

I agree about the problems with aspartame and about the MSG not being inherently bad, but I still think that were there a real problem with MSG it would have emerged in Asian societies that use tons of it.

I liked your site.  Good work!

Cheers–

MRE 

Well, I went to a Chinese restaurant once and got very sick. It required hospitalization. In fact, I dropped dead right there, and my ghost is posting to correct your fallacies. How dare you suggest I am faking my response to this deadly toxin. And how dare you advocate the use of this poisonous neurotoxin. Etc, etc.

Thanks for posting something relevant to our health, based on some sharp common sense, observation and all the other old school doctor skills. And for posting something about letting a “forbidden” “bad” food/additive back in.

I’m just about out of my generic rub (made at home… portions to whim of salt, pepper, cumin, chile, garlic, oregano, mustard, and paprika). I think I will go half the salt and add some Ac’cent to the next batch, just to see.

PS- I haven’t had any problems with aspartame yet either. Maybe we can all accept a little formaldehyde?

PPS- I read that mixing alcohol with diet sodas will make you pop a higher blood alcohol reading than the same volume of alcohol without the pop. Thoughts?

Hi Max–

I’ve never heard that about mixing alcohol with diet sodas.  Off the top of my head I don’t see why it would matter.

Cheers–

MRE 

First…My husband spent some time in toxicology before venturing into the field of Neuroscience and tells me that he remembers that the root cause of “Chinese restaurant Syndrome” was determined to result from release of histamine as food products break down. Since they cook with a lot of fish oil or actual fish, both of these products release a good deal of histamine if they sit for any amount of time. Since histamine is the basis for any allergic reaction, it makes sense that it would cause the symptoms described.

Second…a great source of natural glutamate=one of my favorites. mushrooms! They are loaded with potassium glutamate, which is why they enhance the flavors of dishes so effectively.

Hi Anne–

The symptoms certainly sound like a histamine response.  If so, it would have nothing to do with MSG.  I’ve never heard or read that fish and fish products release histamine if they sit around for a while.  I would love to see the citation on that if your husband has it.

You’re right about the mushrooms–they’re loaded with glutamate.  And they do indeed enhance the flavor of almost anything–for me, at least.

Cheers–

MRE 

Marilyn

Hi Marilyn–

I think it is a Southern thing.  And it is way too tasty, I fear.

Cheers–

MRE 

Anyway it sent me back to your book, the magnesium chapter in particular. I am thinking now that it very well might be a good idea to check my intracelluar magnesium, especially since I am very concerned about loss of brain cells from glutamate reactions, and I seem to be following in a family pattern that culminated in. early dementia Is there now a way to do this directly through a lab? Could you please tell me how best to proceed?

Thanks

Hi elliebelly–

I didn’t intend the take-home message to be that people who have food allergies or sensitivities are crazy; the end of the article in the Guardian told about the author’s experiment on his ‘allergic’ friend and it reminded me of our inadvertent experiment on our own friend, which I simply related.  I didn’t mean to imply that the same would hold true for everyone who has food allergies.  But I do think a lot of them are psychosomatic.

You’re physician can order an intracellular magnesium test for you.  Don’t do a serum test for magnesium as they are worthless.  The intracellular tests are done with cells obtained from scraping the floor of your mouth.  These cells are then sent to the lab to be analyzed for magnesium content.  It’s an expensive test costing about $200 (or at least it cost about that much the last time we did one a few years back.) Here is the website for the lab we used.  Maybe they can help you locate a physician in your area to order the test.  Many physicians don’t know it exists.

Best–

MRE 

Perhaps I wasn’t clear about “detoxifying” MSG. One could envision different mechanisms that didn’t involve MSG itself, but the receptors for glutamate.

When you drink a lot of coffee, your cells upregulate the adenosine receptors that the caffeine binds to. Chronic MSG ingestion could also affect the glutamate receptors in some way.

Hi gretchen–

Yes it’s possible to comment without having it posted.  Just write Don’t post this, and I won’t.

I see what you mean about the upregulation of receptors, but I doubt know if MSG would do that with glutamate receptors because heavy users of MSG end up getting a couple of grams per day, which pales in comparison to the 50 grams the body makes combined with all the glutamate from other sources.

Best–

MRE 

Your article clears up many of my concerns with MSG, and I’ve also done a little digging and found that, aside from fermented soy products, asian cuisine doesn’t really use copious ammounts of soy (Nothing like what many “soy is the perfect food” advocates would have you believe).

That leaves rice, which is still, I believe, a HUGE staple of the Asian diet. Is there good news on that front for fans of low-carb diets AND Asian foods?

Hi Bob–

Alas, rice is a high-carb grain anyway you cut it.  I can’t think of a way that much rice could be part of a low-carb diet.  When I was a kid we never, ever ate Asian food, but we did eat rice as a hot cereal.  It was cooked until puffy, then we would dish it up into our breakfast cereal bowls, put a pat of butter and some sugar on it, add a little milk, and eat it like it was cream of wheat.  Just writing these words makes me want to go face down in a bowl of it. 

Cheers–

MRE